


Together

by By_Noa



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Koriand'r trailer, S1 E10 - Koriandr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 11:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/By_Noa/pseuds/By_Noa
Summary: Dick races to the house to stop Kori from hurting Rachel, but what he finds once there, is just how complicated his feelings for the gang have become, despite his best efforts. Now he's faced with the consequences and how to accept this new path he's on once and for all.





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> This little short is based on the "Koriand'r" trailer. Please excuse any mistakes, this was a literal purge because excitement.

Raven’s scream curdles his blood as he scrambles out of the truck, without sparing a glance at his friend shouting after him about being careful. He skids in, in time to break Gar’s fall as Kory flings him like a rag doll through the air. They break wall and crash to the floor in a heap, and now she's heading towards Rachel whose huddling by the fire place with Angela holding her.

“Kori, it’s me – Rae – Rachel.” She cries.

Dick shakes his head and presses his palms into the floor to push himself up. “Kori, wait,” he calls.

She snaps her head to him and her eyes are ablaze with green fire. “Kori, I know you’re in there – whatever,” he says breathlessly, finally getting back on his feet. “Whatever you were sent here for. I know things are different now. You love Rachel, you want to protect her.”

Rachel slowly stands and begins moving against the wall towards Gar as he ushers her towards him. Kori catches the movement in her periphery and her skin turns to fire as she readies to blast both kids.

“Kori, look at me,” Dick yells, turning her blast towards him. 

Donna leaps in the air, taking Dick down to the floor with her as the fire blazes above their heads. “I thought you said she’d listen to you?” She quips. "Wait in the car, my ass,"

“She’s not herself.” Dick breathes out, doing a quick search of the room and finding Gar in front of Rachel. “Gar, get her out of here.”

“Incoming,” Donna grunts, pushing herself off the floor to attack Kori as she rages forward. The two women grab each other by the shoulders, elbows locked, and Kori throws her head forward, crashing it against Donna’s.

Donna stumbles back, but before she has time to recover, Kori is lifting her off the ground and flinging her over the couch. “Dick, some help,” She says, pulling herself up, but Dick is hesitant to move, usually striking first is his MO but Kori is no villain. He moves as she turns her back on him to double down on his best friend and hugs her from behind. The two wrestle.

Gar and Rachel move around the raucous and split for the door with Angela behind them.

“Put her down,” Donna demands.

“I can get through to her.” Dick says with exasperation, and determination, losing his grip as she thrashes. “Kori,”

She responds in her language, and her eyes fill with fire once more.

She stamps on his foot and throws her elbow back into his ribs, and still he shows restraint, only blocking her, rather than hitting back. Restraint is not in Dick’s repertoire, but this is Kori, he can’t hurt her, or bear the thought of someone else hurting her. Even as she opens her fists with balls of fire flickering, aiming at him. 

He calls her name and for a split second he sees her see him. It’s the delicate twist of her features, as though she’s waking up, trying to recognize her surroundings. 

“Donna, no,” Dick says as she runs in front of him, unleashing the lasso. It takes a life of its own, flicking out and snaking around her wrist. Kori yanks it but it and Donna lift her and throw her to the ground.

Her crash is met with stunned silence. Donna is panting, and when Gar rushes in to check, he is panting, everyone is, but Dick is still, as still as Kori is, and he can’t move, even as Gar runs to her side. 

“Kori,”

“Rachel,” Dick says, looking at the door streaming tiny light.

“She’s OK.” Gar replies. “Kori,” he taps her face.

Dick’s heart is thumping, not because he thinks she’s dead. It’s thumping because Kori will be herself again and she’ll see him, and what she’s done, and he doesn’t know how he’ll walk her back to where they were. She’s the one who knows how to make a pep talk look like an ass ripping or relentless tease when it’s really a ‘chin up’ speech. In the first instance, you don't know if you should be offended or in tears and then it sinks in, and you kind of feel better, like a badass even.

Kori groans, and flutters her eyes open, blinking hard as though light is greeting them for the first time. “Gar?”

“Yeah,” there’s relief in Gar's laugh, and he turns to Dick, almost in a way of reassurance. It’s her. Our Kori’s back.

Kori shoots up, glancing around at the chaos in front of her, and when her eyes finally settle on Dick, there’s something in them that he can’t quite make out, but he knows it’s for him only. He doesn’t know if that a good thing or not considering the last time they’d seen each other, he was abandoning them again. “Rachel,” She whispers.

“She’s OK.” Dick says, and it’s all he can offer right now. He doesn't know if he should be angry, afraid or sorry first and he has no idea how she feels about him, or Rachel for that fact. His mess ups are of the royal variety, and piling.

“Oh,” Kori cries. “Oh, I,” she rushes her hands over her face. “I have to – I can’t stay here.”

Gar stands with her, but she won’t take his hand, and she won’t look at the boy, or him. “Kori,” Dick says as she passes him, and he knows its a weak attempt because his voice cracks above a whisper. His knees are jittery, his fists clenched almost as tight as his chest and his brain is tangling itself in excuses and self-hate.

“No,” Kori says. “I have to go.” And with that, she’s out the door.

Gar is a little stunned, but then he settles on Donna. “You’re her, aren’t you?” he’s fangirling again, shamelessly, and time-wise, inappropriately.

“Gar,” Dick says. “Stay with Rachel, I’m going after her.” He moves to the door.

“I’m going with you,” Donna says, and Dick stops to look at her. “Nuh-uh, bird boy, I’m coming with.”

“I can take care of myself,” Dick reasons, but the right words still refuse to form, and it makes him nervous. What will he say to Kori when he does catch up with her and can he it say it in front of Donna? Can he say it in front of Kori?

"Your 'friend' is not herself." Donna scowls at him. Older, smarter, prettier, dumb-dumb. 

He frowns at her, but doesn’t challenge her emphasis on friend, not right now. He has to move, he can do that, he can still move, and his body wants to go wherever Kori is.

“Let’s go,” Donna pushes past him and heads out. 

He doesn’t know where Kori's going, he only knows someone should and has to be with her right now. She’s been a blank canvas ever since he met her and now all the colors and images are coming in at once. When they climb into the truck with Donna driving, he can see her way up on the dirt road, thanks to the hair. Relief flushes through him, followed by dread because he's already feeling vulnerable - this he is not so good at. 

“Are you sure about this?” Donna asks, but he doesn’t respond.

His stomach is in knots. He never should have left them, again. He should’ve made sure they were alright, he should’ve made sure Rachel was safe with his own eyes, and Kori was – he could’ve helped her figure out who she was – but he – he feared the way he felt being with them. He hadn’t had a family since the circus, and he went from care to the Wayne manor, neither were particularly warm, and they were just pit stops anyway, a delay of the inevitable loneliness that was his fate.

Clay loved him, and he sometimes entertained an alternate reality where he stayed with Mr. Strong and had a wonderfully fulfilling, loving, and normal life, but it always left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was a reminder of something else he lost, and he didn’t want to lose anymore.

***

Dick frowns as they pull up outside an abandoned industrial building. How does she know this place? He thinks. He climbs out of the car and is on her heel as she approaches the rusted doors. “Kori,” He says with regret.

“Stay back,” She clutches her head, and it takes everything in him not to go to her side. It subsides, and her shoulders fall from her ears. “What did I do?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Dick starts. “We’ll figure it out, together.”

“You’ve said that before,” Kori turns to face him, and he clamps his mouth shut. “Didn’t turn out to be true – did it?”

His skin feels tight all of a sudden, and he shifts hoping to distract himself from how difficult he's finding it to breathe. How uncomfortable he is standing in front of this powerful, beautiful, confused woman with his sorry ass. “I know, but,”

“What do you know, Dick?” She crosses her arms.

Dick locks eyes with her, purses his lips before speaking again. “I shouldn’t have left you to deal with all of this on your own,” Because he spent the night before he left with her, listening to her toss and turn, and mumble - and he knew, but fear.

“But you did,” She swallows. “You abandoned us, Dick. You abandoned, Rachel. How could you do that? You had to know she wasn’t completely safe, with those powers, she’d never really be safe, but you left anyway,”

He hates how beaten she looks, how tired and afraid is warring for her attention. How she's struggling to hold onto some form of the reality she lived in when was Kori Anders, the amnesiac. “I was selfish, I know, but I’m here now,”

“That doesn’t mean anything right now,” She says.

Dick looks down at his boots and takes a breath. “I thought I needed time away to figure things out, find out who I was without Robin, without the suit,” He clears his throat and glances up at her, but she isn’t looking at him, he probably makes her sick. He feels like a pile of shit right now. “but I realize now that what I need is – all of you. I mean, I knew that before, I think,” he digs his weight into the heels of his feet. “and uh, with me and you – it was good, maybe too good – and I didn’t think it was a good idea to get you wrapped up in my fucked-up shit,” he swallowed. “I’m not used to needing anyone, Kori, or being needed outside of necessity, and with Rachel, yeah, it started out that way – and then you and Gar got pulled in – and I told myself it was temporary – get Rachel to safety and go back to normal.”

Kori is finally looking at him, and he finds he’s more afraid now than he was when she refused to.

“I hurt you." He swallows the hard lump in his throat, barely getting the words out. "I’m sorry.”

She shrugs nonchalantly. “You – didn’t.” 

But maybe he knows her by now, which he regrets because he realizes he's hurt himself, too. “I’m still really sorry for leaving, it was shitty. I left you to protect them on your own, but you had your own stuff. I should’ve been here in case ‘you’ needed me.”

Donna slowly walks up behind Dick, but he’s grateful for her silence.

Kori's tongue flicks out over her teeth. “I could’ve killed her.”

feeling a little safer to close the distance, Dick takes a step forward. “But you didn’t,”

“I was close, I hurt you, and Gar, and,” She looks at Donna. “'friend'.”

Dick wants to smirk at "friend" but first thing's first. “You’re getting your memories back,” He says. “It was a reaction. You love Rachel, and Gar. I know you do.”

Kori pulls her coat together, as though she's trying to protect herself, maybe from him and what he's saying but she's pulling away and he doesn't like the way it feels. “I should go. I need to go and get as far away from here and her as possible.”

He slips his hands into his pocket. “You could do that, but as an expert on running away from shit, it isn’t sustainable, and it – it hurts the people who care about you.”

She looks at him, long and hard, and he doesn't waver even as she threatens to burn a hole in him. He keeps his eyes connected to hers and decides he will for as long as she needs to believe him. Her face softens, finally, and he breathes.

“Besides,” He smiles. “Rachel and Gar would follow you anywhere.”

There's a tiny smile, almost hidden behind the worry etching on her face. “What if I hurt her, or lose control again?”

Dick closes the gap between them, he wants to hold her and kiss her forehead. He wants to promise her he'll take care of everything and tuck her in his arms until she believes in him again. “You won’t, because I’ll be here this time,”

“Oh, you’re going to stop me, Dick Grayson?” She smiles. It's her first. His heart un-clenches.

“To keep you and Rachel safe.” Dick braves it and reaches up, brushing her hair away from her face. It feels good to touch her.

She drops her gaze. “I can’t face her.”

“Rachel knows more than anyone what it’s like to lose control, but us, together, that’s what makes us stronger. A team." Dick dips his head to find her beautiful green eyes. "Kori, I promise you, I’m not going anywhere, ever again.

“I can’t make order to anything,” Kori turns to the rusted doors. “I think the answers are in here,” she turns back to him. “I have to go inside.”

There is hope in her eyes when she looks at him. She won't ask, but he knows she needs him, and he knows he can't go on the way he was if he's going to be the kind of guy who deserves this accidental family.

Being angry is easy, feeling hateful is easier – with Bruce, he learned how to fight the world, how to attack fear and exact justice. He's strong, stronger than he ever imagined he could be, smarter and sharper than most, and way beyond his peers. The skills he gained living in that manor took years to perfect and he thought nothing else would ever be that hard, but this was hard. This was the hardest. 

Now when he fought it would be because he had people in it, he actually gave a fuck about. It was all new to him, caring instead of pretending not to care. “Whatever it is. I’m with you.” Dick says. “Together, remember?”

Kori sniffles, and nods. “Together,”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking I'll do another part for Kori's POV, once I've seen the episode. Any takers?


End file.
